EARN
INCOME
WHILE
MAKING
GENEROUS
GIFTS
THE CHARITABLE
GIFT ANNUITY
PROGRAM

MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY HAS ESTABLISHED
A CHARITABLE GIFT ANNUITY PROGRAM
TO FUND SCHOLARSHIPS for students and to
ensure the future health and well-being of Morgan
State University for generations to come.
The Charitable Gift Annuity is a simple and convenient way to make a generous gift to Morgan
and receive fixed payments for the remainder of
your life, regardless of market conditions.
You can even provide that payments continue for
the life of another person, if desired.
The amount of the annuity payment depends upon
the age(s) of the individual(s) receiving the annuity
and the amount of the gift.

• You will be entitled to a charitable income
tax deduction for the year your gift annuity
is funded.
• Charitable gift annuities may be funded
with cash or marketable securities.

The table below shows various payout rates at different ages,
as recommended by the American Council on Gift Annuities, a
national association of charities.
GIFT ANNUITY RATES
Single Annuitant
Age .......Rate
60 .........4.4%
65 .........4.7%
70 .........5.1%
75 .........5.8%
80 .........6.8%
85 .........7.8%
90 .........9.0%

For illustrative purposes only. Rates are subject to change.
Contact the Office of Annual Giving for exact benefit information.

We invite you to call to request a
confidential personalized report prepared for
you that will illustrate the payment amount and
an estimate of your income tax deduction.

To learn more about how you can establish a Charitable Gift Annuity to support
Morgan State University, contact Donna Howard in the Development Office at 443-885-4680.

President’s Letter
Alumni and Friends,
Three years after the founding of Centenary Biblical Institute,
the illiteracy rate of African Americans was 81 percent, and
only 9 percent of African-American children attended school,
of any kind. These numbers, from a University of Michigan
analysis of the 1870 U.S. Census, are fitting with the agricultural occupations reported by the overwhelming majority of
blacks that year. Twenty years later, when the Institute was renamed Morgan College, most blacks still lived off of the land.
But, by then, the school’s mission had expanded from the training of black men for the ministry to the training of women and
men as teachers, to address what was then the main challenge
of Maryland’s African-American community.
A little more than a century later, in 2009, again according to
the Census Bureau, more than 81 percent of African Americans aged 25 or older were graduates of high school or postsecondary school. Nearly 18 percent had earned bachelor’s or
advanced degrees. And among the nearly 28 percent of
African-American workers in management, professional and
related occupations that year, a sizeable number, especially in
Maryland, were graduates of Morgan State University.
The point of this brief history is that higher education at Morgan, as elsewhere, has always changed with the times. And the
articles in this magazine reflect the changes taking place today.

But being competitive in today’s world economy, and having
the ability to address the world’s biggest challenges, increasingly require literacy not only in the traditional sense but also
in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
And in this educational mission, Morgan, again, is excelling,
now ranking among the nation’s top 10 institutions in producing black graduates who go on to earn doctorates in science and engineering.
In this volume, we highlight a few of the University’s many
other achievements and advancements in STEM, including our
role in the Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research
program and the opening of our new, state-of-the-art Center
for the Built Environment and Infrastructure Studies building.
We also profile two exchange students from Brazil, now at
Morgan through a program called Science Mobility; an alumnus who was a pioneer in medical technology; and two of our
graduates serving as top officers in the National Society of
Black Engineers.
Clearly, taking the lead in STEM is consistent with Morgan’s
historical mission of preparing a diverse student body for professional success and community service. We thank you for
your vital support of that mission, and we hope you enjoy this
edition of Morgan Magazine.

Our University has a very strong foundation in the liberal arts,
established by renowned scholars on our faculty and by alumni
such as James H. Gilliam Jr., a former English major whose
contributions to Morgan you will read about in these pages.
Likewise, the University has a very strong history in the fine
and performing arts.
Sincerely,

Morgan Magazine
Morgan Magazine is published
by the Division of Institutional
Advancement of MSU for
alumni, parents, faculty,
students, prospective students
and friends. Morgan Magazine
is designed and edited by the
Office of Public Relations and
Communications. Opinions
expressed in Morgan
Magazine are those of the
individual authors and are not
necessarily those of the
University. Unsolicited
manuscripts and photos are
welcome but only with a
stamped, self-addressed
envelope. Letters are also
welcome.
Correspondence directly to:
Morgan Magazine, MSU OPRC
1700 E. Cold Spring Lane
109 Truth Hall, Balto., MD 21251
443-885-3022 office
public.relations@morgan.edu
MORGAN
ADMINISTRATION
Vice President
for Institutional Advancement

FREDERICK K. WILSON, PROFESSOR
AT MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, is a
Ph.D. environmental scientist with a
background in biology, oceanology and
meteorology, and a job title that points
to yet another area of expertise: civil
engineering. His office is in a new, stateof-the-art building that houses both
architecture and engineering degree
programs. And recently, his research
has him working very closely with an
agency best known for putting humans
on the moon.

The range of Dr. Wilson’s scholarship
and research — from the bottom of the
ocean to outer space — may seem
amazing to many, but he says his career
experiences reflect a well-known trend
in science.
“It’s the trend to collaborate and to
approach science from different angles,
which means an interdisciplinary, cooperative sort of format,” he says.

His interests and career choices also
make him a seemingly perfect fit for a
program involving Morgan and that
space agency mentioned above. The
program is called GESTAR — Goddard
Earth Sciences Technology and
Research — and it reflects the evolving
role of NASA as an organization that
explores both Earth and space to
improve quality of human life.

Continued on page 4
MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

3

Drought

Ozone Loss

Researching Earth and Space to Improve Quality of Human Life

Morgan’s Largest Contract Ever
GESTAR was launched in May 2011,
with the award of a $95.8-million contract from NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center to a team led by Universities
Space Research Association (USRA).
Morgan is one of USRA’s partners in
GESTAR, explains Joseph A. Whittaker,
Ph.D., former dean of Morgan’s School
of Computer, Mathematical and Natural
Sciences and one of GESTAR’s associate directors. The other partners are
I.M. Systems Group, of Rockville, Md.,
The Johns Hopkins University, Ball
Aerospace & Technologies, and The
Institute for Global Environmental
Strategies. Morgan’s share of the award
from NASA Goddard, $28.5 million, is
the largest research contract in the University’s history.
Even to nonscientists, a quick look at
GESTAR’s eight research areas reveals
the huge scope of the program: Atmospheric Composition; Carbon Cycle &
Ecosystems; Climate & Weather Prediction; Planetary Analog Studies; Hydrospheric Processes; Earth Rotational &
Gravitational Dynamics; Data Analysis &
Management; and Education & Public
Outreach.
“What ties it together is NASA’s interest
in understanding the Earth and all of its
environment, all of the factors in the
universe that contribute to maintaining
4

MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

the way we as humans function normally,” Dr. Whittaker says.
Seeking Synergies
Dr. Whittaker’s role in GESTAR is administrative, but it’s clear that the onetime
NASA intern is still a scientist and
teacher at heart. His eyes light up as he
outlines some of the areas covered by
GESTAR researchers, then he puts the
processes of those areas in motion, as if
he’s describing an animated film.
“There are people looking at the Arctic
and the ice melt, what influence that
has on the weather and the ocean.
There are people studying the Sun and
all the energetics there, and how that
influences the rest of the solar system.
There’s work that has to do with terrestrial water: the rain and the water in the
ground, all the water bodies in the
Earth and how those are maintained,
how they are cycled. The City of Baltimore has a goal of trying to clean up the
Bay. How are you going to accomplish
that?”
“…All of the GESTAR researchers are
doing their little piece and trying to do
the best thing possible,” he says. “And
we hope that at some point there will
be enough synergy as we learn from
one discipline and the other to bring
those capabilities together to accomplish some of the bigger goals.”

Benefits to Morgan
Being a GESTAR partner means, among
other things, having greater access to
the Earth sciences experts at NASA, Dr.
Whittaker reports.
“Many are now coming to the table with
expertise that we ordinarily would not
have on campus,” he says. “They can
lend that expertise not just to the
research but to our academic programs,
to enhance some existing ones and to
create some new paths for students,
new areas of specialization, concentrations, new degree programs. For faculty,
they can collaborate and go after grant
opportunities just to help their level of
scholarship, as well.”
Among those who have come to the
table are GESTAR Director William
Corso, Ph.D. Dr. Corso has visited
Morgan’s Patuxent Environmental and
Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL)
several times “and actively engaged in
the development of joint education
programs and research proposals,”
reports Chunlei Fan, Ph.D., who is an
associate professor at PEARL. Students
at the laboratory conduct “innovative
research dedicated to investigating the
complex interactions that define our
environment,” its mission statement
reads.
Other benefits from GESTAR include
scholarships.

Sea Ice

Sun Eruption

Student Participation
LandSat

“Some students get their tuition or
parts of their tuition paid from this program,” Dr. Whittaker says. “And there
are opportunities for students to participate in the research and internships.”
“GESTAR also potentially can lead to
many different types of partnerships
with corporate entities who are focused
on novel innovations and global
research,” he says.
‘A Whole Cycle’
The recurring theme heard from
Morgan’s participants in GESTAR — the
improvement of quality of human life —
is something Dr. Fred Wilson says he
learned early, from his mother, in his
home country of Sierra Leone.
“My mother was really interested in
taking care of things, respecting things,
teaching us not to misuse things. She
taught us how to garden, how to cook.
She taught us to be self-sufficient,” he
says.
“Subsistence farming was all over the
place” in the village where he was born,
near Freetown, Dr. Wilson recalls.
“People lived off of the Earth, and they
knew that they would have to treat the
Earth in a special way, otherwise they
wouldn’t be able to survive.”
In Morgan’s Department of Civil Engineering, where he is now a research scientist/lecturer, Dr. Wilson has explored

his longtime interest in remote sensing
and geographic information systems,
which involve using satellites to look at
processes on the surface of the Earth.
Morgan’s participation in the GESTAR
program has enhanced his ability to
apply those advanced technologies to
Earth system science: the study of
things such as climate change,
oceanology, and land-use/land-cover
change in terrestrial and aquatic
ecosystems.
“Land-use/land-cover change is very
important for the existence of human
beings,” he explains. “It involves the
way we transform the natural surface of
the Earth by building things, using more
asphalt, concrete and other materials;
by deforestation: removing the trees,
and then all of the functions of the trees
are lost. I study the impact these things
have.
“Water is one of the most important
assets that we have, and it is sort of
dwindling every year,” he continues. “I
mean potable water, water that you can
drink. And if you look at it, it stems
again from land-use/land-cover,
because the precipitation that we get
through the form of rains and snow does
come from trees, through transpiration,
through those leaves. They’re able to
grab the water and bring it up and put it
into the atmosphere, which creates
clouds. And then the clouds precipitate,

and we get rain and then rivers, and
then fish are there, which is a good
source of protein.
“So it’s a whole cycle,” says Dr. Wilson,
whose work in this country represents
the start of another cycle, of sorts. He is
descended from former African-American slaves who settled in Freetown to
gain their freedom, in the 1790s. “I just
want to make sure we utilize these new
technologies in STEM, not only in transportation but in engineering, in architecture, in science.”
All on Board
Another main goal of GESTAR is to
increase the number of Earth scientists
from underrepresented minority
groups, Dr. Whittaker says. Those
groups include African Americans.
“We still have much to overcome in
terms of representation of minorities in
the scientific arena. And I think Morgan
is well positioned to influence what
happens there for the future,” he says.
However, he adds, “the question is
whether or not we’ll have everybody on
board to make sure we accomplish that
goal.”
“Earth science-related fields, because
they’re new and novel, it takes a while
to get students and parents and high
school teachers and so on to understand what they’re all about,” Dr. Whittaker says. “And for urban kids, these
MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

Morgan’s share of the award from NASA
Goddard, $28.5 million, is the largest research
contract in the University’s history.
are not the things that they routinely hear about. So it’s not
something they readily gravitate towards. So you have to do
your due diligence in marketing and PR and have some representation in the community to talk about it.”

The focus of Dr. Benita Bell’s
work with GESTAR has been to
develop, expand and strengthen
astrobiology research partnerships among Minority-serving
Institutions. She now serves as
codirector for the Minority
Astrobiology Collaborative,
which is a virtual collaboration
of minority institutions engaged
in astrobiology research and
education initiatives. Another component of Dr. Bell’s
work is to provide outreach and education to local organizations; colleges and universities; science, technology,
engineering and mathematics (STEM) conferences and
area schools to promote awareness of astrobiology and
advance STEM in underrepresented communities.
“The GESTAR Progam is a highly beneficial and unique
program to advance research and scientific collaborations
among scientists,” Dr. Bell says. And she calls Morgan “a
fertile research ground for continued greatness.”

Unique Opportunity
Dr. Whittaker stresses that GESTAR is still a work in progress,
two years after its launch. He reports that the program is on
schedule and that the GESTAR team received many accolades
in its first-year review.
“We have a number of initiatives that we want to implement at
Morgan during the second year, and we’re moving towards
that,” he says. “One of those initiatives that involves undergraduate students as well as faculty is a dual-degree program: a
B.S./M.S., five-year program jointly with Johns Hopkins. And so
we’re in the midst of developing the curriculum and the program design at the moment.”
Dr. Whittaker calls GESTAR “unique” and “a once-in-alifetime kind of opportunity for any institution.”
“The fact that Morgan could be part of the winning team that
got this award speaks volumes, and I think it’s up to us to make
sure we can maintain that and we can succeed,” he says. “If we
can do our part and leverage the opportunities and the capabilities that are associated with this, I think we will only go up
from here.
“…The students will be the long-term beneficiaries,” he concludes. “GESTAR should go a long way to helping us expand
and grow the quality of our academic programs and our entire
research enterprise.”

6

MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

Ronald Errico, Ph.D.
GESTAR Research Scientist
NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center
Data assimilation products yield
the best comprehensive description of the climate. Acquiring
this description is a goal of
NASA. Dr. Errico’s work involves
validating current data assimilation algorithms and observations, improving assimilation
techniques, and estimating the
expected impacts of newly proposed atmospheric observing
instruments.
“Due to the size and breadth of the (GESTAR) organization, I cannot speak for most of the projects. But those
with which I am familiar are on the cutting edge of
research (that is) highly considered by the community of
corresponding scientific specialists,” Dr. Errico says. “Our
hope is also that…we can likewise significantly impact
the Morgan community: educating, stimulating and
encouraging students to enter one of the engineering or
scientific fields of the Earth sciences.”

Leaders in Engineering
Diversity
By Frank McCoy

Keith Humphrey, ‘93, succeeded Darnell Fisher, ‘03,
as national chair of NSBE Professionals, a component
of the National Society of Black Engineers.

IT ISN’T POSSIBLE to engineer a
device or write a computer program
that controls luck. However, Morgan’s
engineering and computer science programs, and the University’s academic
community at large, did provide a path
that led two alumni to leadership in the
29,000-member National Society of
Black Engineers (NSBE).
NSBE, founded in 1975, now has hundreds of chapters in the U.S. and
abroad. This past March, at the organization’s Annual Convention in Indianapolis, Keith Humphrey, Morgan
Class of 1993, was sworn in as NSBE’s
national Alumni Extension chair, succeeding Darnell Fisher, ‘03, who held
that post during the previous year. On
Aug. 1, 2013, NSBE’s Alumni Extension
took on the more descriptive name
“NSBE Professionals.”
Humphrey is a database engineer at
Cedar Document Technologies, in
Atlanta. As a child, he was fascinated
with science and technology and later
enrolled at the University of Maryland,
College Park with a desire to become a
meteorologist.
He then transferred to Morgan to
attend a smaller but competitive
school, and decided to major in computer science. That decision would be a
perfect fit with NSBE, says Humphrey,
as the engineering organization also
includes members from most other science, technology and math-related
disciplines.
The ex-MSU varsity basketball cheerleader joined NSBE after tutoring engineering students who were taking a
C++ programming class at the University, and his interest and involvement
in the Society took off. Now, he helps
professionals discover and use valueadded components of NSBE membership in today’s tougher and more
diverse economy.

Keith Humphrey, ‘93
‘To Increase the Number’
Fellow Morgan graduate Darnell Fisher
was NSBE National Alumni Extension
chair from May 2012 through April of
this year. He is a nuclear controls engineer working with the Nuclear Engineering and Planning Department of
NAVSEA, the Naval Sea Systems Command, at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, in
Virginia.
Like Humphrey, Fisher excelled at math
from a young age and gravitated toward
a science, technology, engineering,
math (STEM) career. But beyond the
fact that he received an academic
scholarship from the school, he says,
he was sold on Morgan because of its
exciting, family-like atmosphere.
Fisher was initially attracted to engineering because of the high average
salaries and diverse opportunities in
the profession. However, he says, he
“ultimately settled on engineering due
to the friends I made during my orientation week at Morgan.”
The social and career development life
of the University also led Fisher to
NSBE. The Society’s mission is “to
increase the number of culturally

Darnell Fisher, ‘03
responsible black engineers who excel
academically, succeed professionally
and positively impact that community.”
“While I succeed, I owe it to Morgan,
my community and those who supported me, to reach back and give
another minority student a chance to
succeed anyway that I possibly can,”
Fisher says.
The former Bear varsity basketball
player now supports MSU as an active
mentor and recruiter of prospective
Morgan students still in high school,
and financially, as a lifetime member of
the MSU National Alumni Association.
At NAVSEA, Fisher is responsible for
overseeing technical planning and execution of electrical controls projects
related to the nuclear reactor compartments onboard U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and submarines.
Coincidentally, NSBE had another
recent link to Baltimore. Calvin A.
Young III, a Baltimorean and a graduate
of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, was
NSBE’s national chair, the organization’s top officer, for the 2012–2013 program year.
MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

7

CBEIS Enhances Morgan
Architecture, Engineering
By Frank McCoy

8

MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

THE NEWEST addition to Morgan’s
North Campus is not only attractive to
the eye, it is also a magnet for students
seeking a state-of-the-art venue to pursue
careers in a wide range of architecture
and engineering fields. Opened officially
during a grand opening ceremony last
Sept. 20, the Center for the Built Environment and Infrastructure Studies (CBEIS)
is a 131,000-square foot, $67-million
facility located on Perring Parkway, adjacent to Herring Run.
The design of the Center facilitates MSU’s
multidisciplinary approach to instruction,
and as the school’s first building certified
by LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, it also signals the University’s commitment to environmental
sustainability. CBEIS won the Baltimore
chapter of the American Institute of
Architecture Sustainability award in 2012
and is on the path to LEED Gold
certification.
CBEIS delights the eye and mind. The
light-filled facility houses Morgan’s
School of Architecture and Planning, and
the School of Engineering’s civil engineering programs, transportation engineering programs and National Transportation Center.
Mary Anne Akers, Ph.D., dean and professor of the School of Architecture and
Planning, says CBEIS was developed “to
reflect the professional world, where
architects, civil engineers, urban transportation specialists and landscape architects form one team. It is a natural
grouping of allied professions.”

Genesis
In the early 2000s, Earl S. Richardson,
Ed.D., then president of Morgan, declared
that the architecture and planning school
had outgrown the Montebello Complex,
where it had been housed since 1997, and
deserved its own space. The State of
Maryland heard that call but replied that
there were too few architecture students
at Morgan to justify the funding. Morgan’s
dean of engineering, Eugene M.
DeLoatch, Ph.D., then suggested bringing
related architecture and engineering
departments together under one roof.

“It made sense to have the young people
in those disciplines work and be in close
proximity,” he explains. “The stovepipe
approach to education is over.”
The State agreed, and construction commenced in 2010. The Freelon Group, an
African-American-owned, North Carolinabased architecture firm, led the development, planning and preliminary design of
CBEIS. Coincidentally, a Freelon associate, Churchill Banks III, received his
Master of Architecture from Morgan in
1997. Freelon worked with Baltimore
architectural firm Hord Coplan Macht,
which led the construction of CBEIS.

Features
Dean Akers says the building’s broad,
four-story atrium creates a street-like
atmosphere that can be “programmed”
and used organically. Professors already
gather students there for discussions.
CBEIS features 34 classrooms; studios
with spacious architectural desks; 10
study, conference and jury rooms; and
computer labs. Four other laboratories
include one with a 3-D projector and
another with a tabletop wind tunnel to
model structural stability.
In keeping with a commitment to sustainability, CBEIS has solar panels on its roof,
and photovoltaic window treatments. Two
rooftop rain gardens, with adjacent patio
space, send filtered water down to Herring Run. The facility also incorporates
the natural landscape of the Herring Run
watershed to control storm water, and a
stream that runs through the basement of
the building is part of a bioretention
pond, to filter pollutants from storm
water runoff. Akers says the building’s
eco-friendly design elements brand
Morgan as a “green” leader.
One of the biggest gains for the civil engineering department at CBEIS is access to
one of only two earthquake simulators on
the East Coast. The device can produce
seismic activity up to 9.0 on the Richter
scale.

land’s newest facility for a school of architecture are already being felt. There are
now 400 architecture and planning students at Morgan: 250 undergraduates and
150 graduate students. Dr. Akers says an
influx of students could lead to further
expansion of the school’s offerings.
Evan Richardson, ‘00, assistant to the
dean of the School of Architecture and
Planning, and a master’s graduate of the
school, has noted the school’s rise in
popularity. He reports that about 30
architecture students transferred to
Morgan in 2012, instead of the usual 10.
“The building has a wow factor,” he says.
Another MSU architecture graduate, Cynthia Shonaiya, ‘98, agrees. Shonaiya, the
principal and vice president at Hord
Coplan Macht, praises several elements
of the building, including, “the way in
which skylights introduce whimsical
shadow play into the interior spaces; the
ever-changing landscape in the rain gardens; the lively interactive pin-up spaces
in the atrium; (and) the constantly
changing colors of the LED lighting. All of
these touches make this a special
building,” she says.

‘A Research Tool’
The School of Architecture and Planning’s
undergraduate programs include Bachelor of Science degrees in architecture
and environmental design and in construction management. The three graduate programs are master’s degrees in
architecture, landscape architecture, and
city and regional planning.
This past fall, CBEIS held an event for
alumni to encourage graduates to visit,
conduct guest lectures, sponsor a wall or
bid for naming rights of the building.
“We are a research university, and CBEIS
is a research tool,” says Dr. Akers. “And
the way this building was constructed
produces a lot of data that we can use.
When students and their parents decide
on a college, the physical environment is
a big deal.”

‘Wow Factor’
The ripples from the opening of MaryMORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

9

Elected officials of Maryland and Baltimore joined Morgan administrators and alumni at the
ground breaking of the Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management. (Nov. 28, 2012)

Breaking Ground in Business
and Management
By Frank McCoy

THE OPENING of CBEIS was only one
major start for MSU last fall. On Nov.
28, 2012, ground was broken for a new,
$72-million, 140,000-square foot
building for the Earl G. Graves School
of Business and Management. The
structure will be the first building on
Morgan’s new West Campus, across
Hillen Road from the main campus
and adjacent to the Northwood Shopping Center.
Earl G. Graves, a 1957 graduate of
Morgan with a bachelor’s in economics, is the founder and publisher
of Black Enterprise magazine. At the
ground breaking ceremony, he praised
the new school’s placement,
explaining that he started his first
business as a Morgan student,
mowing lawns nearby for Hillen Road
homeowners. In true MSU fashion, he
hired his fraternity brothers as the
business grew.
At the ground breaking, Morgan President David Wilson referred to the his10

MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

toric civil rights activism of Morgan
students at Northwood Shopping
Center, in the 1950s and ‘60s.
“Just as a new footbridge will connect
this academic complex with the main
campus to the east of Hillen Road, so,
too, will this day bridge Morgan’s history here…with its future,” he said.
When the school is completed in 2014,
it will have a market research lab and

a financial instrument trading laboratory, more space for current entrepreneurship programs, and demonstration facilities for students in the
hospitality program.
“This state-of-the-art facility is an
asset in the collaborative nature of
teaching and learning in a global,
technologically driven world,” says the
school’s dean, Fikru Boghossian, Ph.D.
“From this facility we will produce
knowledge and knowledge workers
who will shepherd the knowledgedriven economy.”
Maryland State Sen. Joan Carter
Conway and Baltimore City Councilman Robert W. Curran also participated in the ground breaking.
Upon the business school’s completion, President Wilson said, Morgan
will construct a Behavioral and Social
Sciences building and a School of
Community Health and Policy building
on neighboring plots.

Walter Carr Jr., ‘55

Artist-Entrepreneurs
Drawing on Past and Present
By Wiley A. Hall III

SMILING THOUGHTFULLY, Walter
Carr Jr. folds his arms, leans back in his
chair and looks off into the distance.
He’s in the sun-drenched enclosed
patio of his comfortable home in
Columbia, Md., a suburb between
Washington and Baltimore. He has just
been asked to reflect on more than five
decades as an editorial cartoonist and
describe one or two of his personal
favorites.
The question gives Carr, 80, a lot to
think about. An award-winning freelance cartoonist and graphic designer,
the Morgan graduate (Class of ‘55) has
drawn for Playboy, as well as Ebony Mag-

azine, Jet, Negro Digest, Black World and virtually every other black-owned publication in the country, large and small.
Carr’s smile turns into a grin.
“The ones that come to mind were
some of the ones I did for Players Magazine, but they were a bit risqué. I’m
afraid I can’t describe them for a family
publication,” he confesses. (Gentlemen
of a certain age may well recall Players,
the 70s-era magazine that saw itself as
a black alternative to Playboy.)
When Carr’s not being risqué, he’s often
controversial. Here’s a Carr cartoon
from 2009: A teacher is taking roll call

five years after the election of President
Barack Obama. In the class there’s an
“Obama Taylor,” a “Barack Thomas,” an
“Obamalita Jackson,” a “Baracka Washington,” an “Obamalama Hicks…”.
Like many of Carr’s cartoons, the panel
sparked considerable comment when it
first appeared in 2009.
“Is this funny?” asked one blog post.
“Would it make a difference if you knew
the cartoonist was black?”
“Yeah I think it’s funny, cause it’s true,”
came one reply. “You know how we do.”
Continued on next page

MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

11

Passed-down Passion
“You Know How We Do,” might be a good summation of Carr’s satiric wit. He’s a humorist from
the old school, taking gentle jabs at the foibles
of Black America, more in the tradition of
Langston Hughes’ loving portraits of black life
than the harsh, derogatory portrayals of many
of today’s black comedians. On the other hand,
when Carr’s not commenting on how we do,
he’s taking a much tougher look at how
whites do, such as in a panel illustrating the
disparate sentences between whites and blacks
convicted of drug offenses.
Carr’s family came to his hometown of Baltimore
from Philadelphia, where his father had been circulation manager for the Philly edition of the AfroAmerican Newspapers. After the move, Walter Carr
Sr. began publishing the Nitelifer, a popular advertising periodical that circulated for many years
in Baltimore’s bars. Carr Jr. played football
and ran track at Morgan before graduWalter Carr Jr., ‘55
ating with a bachelor’s degree in art
education.
Carr Jr., who drew his first
editorial cartoons
for his

father’s publication, says he got his passion for
social and political commentary from his parents,
who were active during the U.S. civil rights
movement.
“My mom and dad were way ahead of their time,” he
says. “I know my dad lived for those Nitelifer editorials. They were brilliantly written, and many of his
points would still apply today.”
Carr Jr. retired in 1989 as chief of the visual graphics
section at the Social Security Administration’s
Woodlawn, Md. headquarters. He devoted himself
to his freelance career shortly afterward.
Carr’s resume reads like a history of black publishing in the 20th century. Some of the publications he’s worked for are long dead, some are slowly
dying; others are hanging on, desperately trying to
reinvent themselves online. Even the mainstream
publications are struggling to make ends meet.
Although jobs in Carr’s craft may be withering, other
opportunities for talented artists may be blossoming in the digital age.
“Let’s face it, newspapers and magazines are
dinosaurs, particularly black-owned publications,”
Carr says. “Today’s kids are into graphic novels, storyboarding for movies, animations.
“But that’s OK,” he continues. “I’ve been blessed in
so many ways: my family, my wife, my hopes and
aspirations. I have the greatest circle of friends. You
can’t ask for more than that.”
Carr’s one regret has to do with the business side of
cartooning. He is self-syndicated and learned
mostly through trial and error. He’s planning an
anthology of his work but has found there was
much he didn’t know about important issues such
as copyright and republication rights.
Inspiration for Youth
In contrast, Morgan graduate Ajamoo Raheem
Kemet, ’95, is more businessman than artist. He
has created a graphic universe of superheroes
designed for the next generation of African
Americans. But the young entrepreneur,
who was known as Maurice Mander when
he obtained his graduate degree in
African American history from
Morgan, hires others to do the artwork, while he concentrates on selling
the concept.
And he is a terrific salesman.
“Our children are searching for superheroes,”
Kemet says passionately. “They are searching for
them; they’re starving for them.
“They are looking for exactly the same things
I was looking for, coming up,” he continues.

“It’s not enough to have heroes who look like
them. They want heroes they can look up to, who
inspire them and don’t degrade them or their
community.”
Kemet has many enterprises working, but his No.
1 product is Surian Seed, a project he started
more than a decade ago and launched at the
Philadelphia Comic Con in 2011. His book, “Surian
Seed Universe Guide,” always sells out quickly,
along with associated posters and other artwork.
There are no stories as of yet, because, he says,
there don’t need to be: “We’ll start producing
Surian Seed books when the market for the other
materials dies out.”
Superheroes in the ‘Hood
The Surian Seed legend goes like this: It turns out
that what we know as martial arts originated on
the distant planet Sur, where the Surian warlords
are locked in an intergalactic struggle with their
former slaves, the Korroks. Earth gets caught in
the middle of this battle, but we Earthlings are
protected by a team of variants: human beings
born with an advanced understanding of martial
arts. These heroes are black, live and work in the
black community, and many are graduates of Historically Black Colleges or Universities.

another is a cancer survivor. Kemet
says he draws inspiration from
such diverse sources as Sam
Greenlee’s 1973 film “The Spook
Who Sat By the Door” and Paul
Laurence Dunbar’s 19th century
classic poem “We Wear the
Mask.”
In selling his concept, Kemet says
he tailors his pitch to his audience.
“You can’t just be one thing,” he says.
“Comic book fans might be attracted to
the storyline and the artwork. But if I’m
talking to educators, I talk about how important education is to the characters. And if I’m
talking to social workers, I talk about Surian
Seed as a self-esteem tool. My motto is, ‘You’ve
got to spread yourself like a virus.' ”
“When I first started, people told me this
concept couldn’t sell,” Kemet says. “But a
good salesman can sell fire to people in
hell.”

Ajamoo Raheem Kemet, ‘95

Their leader is Infinite, a high school teacher from
Trenton, N.J., who attended Morehouse College.
His sister is Jaden, a natural telepath who
attended Spelman College and is a social worker,
when she isn’t defending the planet from bad
guys.
And, of course, there are the Morgan graduates:
Sinnerblock, who is a college professor with super
strength, and the brilliant child prodigy Architec,
who graduated from Morgan at 16, thanks
to his intuitive understanding of science and engineering.
Other heroes include Range, the
complicated professional assassin
whom Kemet describes as the
female embodiment of Tupac,
and Musenda, a wealthy financial
analyst and philanthropist who
went to Morehouse College.
Spreading the Seed
Much of the action in the stories-to-be will
center on Kemet’s native Trenton, and he
says the storylines will deal with urban
challenges in all of their complexity. He
foresees looking at issues such as whether
hip hop is good or bad, and what it means
to be a black intellectual. One of his heroines detests men who beat up women;

MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

13

DONOR

PROFILE

Jesse Brown, ’77

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MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

Cultivating Achievement
Jesse Brown, MSU Class of 1977
By Eric Addison
AT AGE 81, Jesse Brown recalls his life
journey in remarkable detail: from the
farm where he grew up in southern Virginia, to the house in Glen Burnie, Md.,
where he now resides as a retiree from
the federal government. It’s all there in
the telling: the number of teachers in
the segregated grade school he
attended in Mount Laurel, Va.; the
family history that led to his short
matriculation at Virginia Union University where, instead of being drafted into
the Army, he joined the Air Force and
served honorably for four years. But the
enthusiasm in his voice rises a level
when he arrives at his contributions to
his longtime profession, medical technology, the field in which he obtained
his Bachelor of Science degree in 1977,
from Morgan State University.
“I had three articles published (in scientific journals),” says Brown. “I found
copies here.”
The articles were all published, with
Brown as the sole author, during his 32year tenure as supervisor of medical
technologists at Kimbrough Army Community Hospital, at Fort Meade, in
Maryland. And all began as suggestions
to his superiors about how to improve
processes in the chemistry lab. “Simplified Microdetermination of Urea
Nitrogen in Serum or Plasma without
Deproteinizing” was published in the

American Journal of Medical Technology in
May 1971. Next was “An Inexpensive
Tube Test for Hemoglobin S” in 1990, in
the journal of the Society of Armed
Forces Medical Laboratory Scientists.
The last, “Correlation of the Abbott
Spectrum with the Olympus AU5000 for
Automated Urine Chemistry Analysis,”

Brown, who earned his
degree as a part-time
student over 16 years, is
one of many Morgan
graduates who have
enriched the world with
their work in STEM.
was published in 2000 in Laboratory
Medicine, a journal of the American
Society of Clinical Pathology, shortly
after his retirement.
Brown, who earned his degree as a
part-time student over 16 years, is one
of many Morgan graduates who have
enriched the world with their work in
science, technology, engineering and
math (STEM). And he has been a
standout performer as a donor to
Morgan, as well, a role he downplays.
He began with small donations, and “in
the later years before I retired (and into
my retirement), I had moved it up quite
a bit,” he says. In 2001, he established a
need-based scholarship fund at the

Mr. Brown is a member of the Legacy Council, established by the
Morgan State University Foundation in 2012 to honor alumni and friends
who have made a bequest or other deferred gift commitments to the
Morgan State University Foundation. Gifts through your will, trust,
retirement account, or life insurance can offer estate and income tax
benefits to your estate while helping Morgan continue to fulfill its mission
to provide access to higher education to all of the best students – from
all backgrounds.

Morgan State University Foundation,
and in 2011, he established the Jesse F.
Brown Endowed Scholarship Fund to
benefit students majoring in medical
technology or chemistry. His philanthropic commitment to Morgan now
and in the future is well over $1 million.
Brown’s recollections of his life are
interspersed with stories of the racial
discrimination he faced coming up. But
he recalls the incidents now without
bitterness, sometimes even chuckling.
He prefers to focus on ways to help
young people succeed today.
“If it hadn’t been for people like Dr.
Bertha Williams (dean of the evening
school at Morgan in the 1970s), I probably wouldn’t even have a degree,” he
says. “What I do now (as a donor to
Morgan) is to hopefully help some
other students.”
It seems Brown has been a cultivator
all of his life, sewing seeds that slowly
produced a good harvest in his career
and as a Morgan benefactor. So maybe
it’s no surprise he’s back to being a
farmer now, part time, on land in his
birthplace in Virginia.
“Right now, I’m planting pines…
loblolly pine. It’s sold for lumber,” he
explains. “It usually takes 50, 60 years
to grow a tree, but you can grow this
one in 20.”

LEGACY COUNCIL
Morgan State University Foundation
MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

15

Historic University Chapel
Needs Financial Assistance
By Leonard C. Simmons, MSU Class of 1953
he University Memorial
Chapel, previously known as
the Morgan Christian Center,
has the distinction of being one of
the few buildings on the Morgan
campus that has been in continuous use for the entire student
body and community virtually
since Morgan College became
Morgan State College in 1939. In
2012, because of its historic significance, the Memorial Chapel was
added to the National Register of
Historic Places, the only building
on the Morgan campus with that
singular honor. Earlier, before its
historic value was fully appreciated, the Chapel was allowed
to lapse into a state of disrepair and now is in desperate need of financial
assistance for its
restoration and
operation.

T

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MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

History
The Morgan Christian Center, dedicated
in 1941, was designed by Albert I. Cassell, FIAA, a nationally acclaimed
African-American architect. The Center’s
original purpose was to promote values
and ideals consistent with Morgan’s origins as the Centenary Biblical Institute.
Although it was owned and operated by
the Methodist Episcopal Church, the
Center became more than a house of
worship: it was an integral part of
campus life. In addition to providing traditional religious services, it served as an
auditorium at a time when Morgan did
not have one, and as a venue for scholarly presentations and academic ceremonies. It was also a recreational center
and, during the period of de jure segregation, a place where visiting athletic
teams stayed.
Dr. Howard L. Cornish, Morgan Class of
1927, was director of the Morgan Christian Center from 1944 to 1976.
New Ownership, and Name
Change
In 2008, because the Methodist Episcopal Church could no longer afford to
operate the Morgan Christian Center and
the nearby parsonage (also designed by
Cassell), the two buildings were deeded
to MSU. The venerable Morgan Christian
Center was renamed the University
Memorial Chapel. The name change was
made to indicate that the Chapel had
assumed the new mission of ministering
to the spiritual needs of the entire
Morgan community, not only Christians.
In that same year, Dr. Bernard Keels, who
holds a Master of Divinity degree from
Yale University and Doctor of Ministry
from McKendree School of Religion, was
named director of the Chapel. Upon

becoming director, Dr. Keels was faced
with two pressing problems: the
decaying physical condition of the
Chapel, and sparsely attended Sunday
services. To assist in solving these problems, Dr. Keels convened a group of volunteers, Friends of the Chapel (FOC) —
consisting of Morgan graduates as well
as others — to advise him on strategies
whereby the Chapel would return to its
previous status as an essential and
dynamic part of Morgan.
Interfaith Services
In keeping with its interfaith mission,
clergy representing the Jewish, Muslim
and Christian traditions are now
assigned to or available as resources of
the Chapel. As a result of the hard work
of these dedicated clergy, the Chapel has
witnessed a surge in attendance at all of
its faith services and is quickly outgrowing its physical meeting spaces. Of
particular note: a new Islamic Prayer
Room has been opened in renovated
space within the Chapel, to serve the
University’s growing Islamic community.
Restoration and Preservation
Throughout the process of planning for
the Chapel’s needs, Dr. David Wilson,
president, MSU, has been of invaluable
assistance. He fully supported FOC’s
goal to restore and preserve the Chapel
and have it added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Morgan graduates and students have
also come to the assistance of the
Chapel. Lt. Col. Larry D. Turner, U.S.
Army (Ret.), Class of 1978, and his wife,
Lottie Jackson Turner, are in the process
of raising $100,000 for the Chapel in
memory of their daughter Lauren N.
Turner, a Morgan student, who was killed
in a tragic accident in September 2010.

Members of Morgan’s Howard L. Cornish
Metropolitan Baltimore Alumni Chapter
have contributed in-kind services: they
refinished the original pews. And in an
unparalleled display of interdepartmental collaboration, Morgan graduate
students in landscape architecture,
under the direction of Melanie Moser,
lecturer, presented proposals whereby
the Chapel grounds would be landscaped to make them more accessible
and inviting to the campus and surrounding community. The accessibility
and site improvement plans proposed by
the students will be implemented with
funds from a grant provided by the State
of Maryland.
Future Needs
Although great progress has been made
in preserving the Chapel and restoring it
to its original state, much work remains
to be done. Additional work on the
Chapel’s physical plant will cost approximately $200,000. Also, the variety and
richness of programs offered by the
Chapel need to be expanded significantly. Dr. Keels estimates that to implement the programs he envisions, an
annual operating budget of $140,000 is
required.
It is hoped that alumni and friends of
Morgan will donate generously to the
Chapel, so it can continue to be a muchneeded source of spiritual guidance and
support for the entire Morgan community. The FOC is seeking volunteers to
join its group or support its activities.
Tax-deductible contributions to the
Chapel may be sent to the Morgan State
University Foundation c/o the University
Memorial Chapel.

Leonard C. Simmons is former chair of the
Friends of the Chapel.
MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

Bernice Johnson Beaird, MSU ‘54,
knew that her husband, Franklin
Beaird, MSU ‘50, had been a Marine in
the Pacific Theater during World War II.
But he never talked about his military
service. After they married in 1954, it
was another 57 years before she
learned he was one of the Montford
Point Marines: the African Americans
who broke the Corps’ color barrier.
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MORGAN MAGAZINE
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Indeed, like most Americans, black or
white, Bernice had never heard of
these warriors. Theirs is a largely forgotten chapter in United States military history, one that another Morgan
graduate — writer, actor and producer
Samm-Art Williams, ‘68 — attempted
to popularize with his 2011 play “The
Montford Point Marine.”
Unlike the Army and Navy, the Marine

Corps had been a staunchly all-white
institution since the Revolutionary
War. But in June 1941, as war
approached, President Franklin Roosevelt, pressured by black leaders,
issued an executive order prohibiting
further discrimination in war industries
and federal agencies. Officials apparently used the executive order to
insist the Marine Corps open its ranks.

Belated Recognition
At the war’s end, Beaird, glad for his
discharge, enrolled in the physical education bachelor’s degree program at
Morgan, on the G.I. Bill.

“I did what I had to do. I stood tall, man. I dressed the part.”
— Franklin Beaird, ’50
THE CORPS COMPLIED, but with conditions: the African Americans accepted
were segregated from white Marines. A
separate basic training facility was
established at Montford Point, part of
Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Some
20,000 African-American Marines went
to boot camp there between 1942 and
1949, when Montford Point closed.
Rather than being welcomed by the
Corps, these recruits met open prejudice. Unless accompanied by a white
Marine, they were not allowed to set
foot in Camp Lejeune. Local merchants locked up their shops when the
black Marines were granted their first
liberty, and later the Montford Pointers
were frequently turned away from
restaurants.
After boot camp, the black Marines
were shipped off to battle zones, where
they served in all-black units. During
that time, Marine leaders voiced their
intention to discharge all black Marines
after the war. Beaird heard the talk.
“It was going to go back…to lily white,”
he says. But the newcomers eventually
proved their mettle in the field, and
attitudes changed. The African Americans stayed.
‘As Good or Better’
Beaird was drafted at age 18, right after
high school, and was told to report to
Montford Point. He remembers the
white drill instructors and the strong
desire to excel among all of the black
recruits he knew.

“We were going to prove that we were
as good or better than those whites as
Marines,” he says.
He was insulted when Gen. Bedell
Smith reviewed the trainees, who were
drawn up in parade formation. He
remembers Smith saying, “When…I
saw your black folks in our Marine
Corps uniforms, then I knew (there) was
a war going on.” Those words have
always stuck in his craw.
Beaird eventually made corporal.
“I wasn’t that gung-ho Marine…,” he
says, “I did what I had to do. I stood
tall, man. I dressed the part.”
Beaird was sent to the Pacific as part of
an ammunition company and took part
in the invasion of half a dozen islands,
including Okinawa. Their job was taking
ammo to the front and bringing back
the wounded. They weren’t a combat
unit but were in the line of fire. Beaird
was wounded but not seriously and
went on despite contracting malaria.
Acceptance by white Marines, most of
whom were Southerners, grew tremendously over time, he recalls, as the
African Americans showed their competence. One eye-opener was their performance at the battle of Iwo Jima,
where Marine casualties were so high
officers had to press blacks into
combat.
“I heard two in our outfit won the
Medal of Honor,” he says.

“I was a rock, but they polished me and
made me a nugget,” he says. He names
a number of professors who “would try
to help you any way they could.” Two,
in particular, he says — professors
Wilson and Carter — arranged for
students to get extensions to pay their
college fees when they ran short of
money. They helped him when his G.I.
Bill tuition check was late.
After his graduation from Morgan,
Beaird taught physical education and
coached in the Baltimore City and
Howard County (Md.) schools for 32
years, retiring as athletic director at
Baltimore’s Southern High School (now
Digital Harbor High School). Since
then, he and Bernice have traveled the
world.
He always tried to keep the war out of
mind, because of its horrors and the
indignities he suffered as a black
Marine. He declined to join the Montford Point Marine Association.
The Montford Pointers went unrecognized for nearly 70 years, until Marine
Commandant Gen. James F. Amos
began to make amends for their inferior
treatment. Last summer, 430 of the surviving Marines were honored in ceremonies in Washington, D.C., and given
the nation’s highest civilian award, the
Congressional Gold Medal.
At the ceremonies, Beaird saw black
three-star generals and black women
colonels.
“It was really beautiful to watch,” he
says, adding, “They saluted me. They
said, ‘Thank you, thank you. You led the
way for us.’ ”
The honors, the gratitude, the realization of the Montford Pointers’ accomplishments gave Beaird a sense of pride
in his Marine service for the first time.
He joined the Montford Point Marine
Association soon thereafter.

Video: Beaird can be seen speaking about his military and Morgan experience at http://www.youtube.com/morganstateu
MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

19

The
Marcellus Shepard, MSU Class of 1997
By James Michael Brodie

“BROTHER, YOU GOT SOME PIPES!”
And with that observation from
Morgan’s music director, a radio career
was launched.
But it was not the career that 19-yearold Marcellus Shepard, ‘97, had envisioned. He dreamed of TV, the movies,
perhaps even a singing career. But a
class visit to the WEAA broadcast facilities in the fall of 1994 changed all of
that, once the station’s program
director took note of the rich baritone
coming from the young student during
a Q&A session and decided to put him
on the air.
Better known as “The Bassman,”
Shepard, who majored in telecommunications at Morgan, has been synonymous with Baltimore radio for nearly
two decades. He serves as interim general manager and program director for
WEAA, overseeing all aspects of station
programming and finances, and is
responsible for just about every song
played on the Morgan airwaves, sifting
daily through hours of submissions,
trying to find the right sounds. At other
times, he is on the phone with label
representatives who push to get their
set of songs some play.
The Bassman is a fixture on the afternoon program In the Groove, and cohosts
the nationally syndicated Cool Jazz
Countdown, which airs in more than a
dozen markets.
Shepard, now 39, came to the music
the old fashioned way: growing up in a
home where the sounds flowed like
water in a stream.

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MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

“My father would always have these
parties, with turntables going in the
basement,” explains Shepard, a
product of Prince George’s County, Md.
“I would sit on the stairs just soaking it
all in.”
His father, who owns an engineering
and heating company, had assumed
that young Marcellus would follow in
his footsteps, but the son had other
ideas. After high school, Marcellus
enrolled at Florida Memorial University
in Miami, where he sang in the chorale.
He and a group of college buddies
formed a vocal group named FLOW and
began performing love ballads around
the city. They were soon discovered by
a local producer who offered to give
them a shot.
But a clash of egos led to the group’s
demise just as quickly as it had started.
The group disbanded, and Shepard
came home and enrolled at Morgan.
After making an impression with the
radio heads at WEAA, he found himself
sitting in a studio on a Friday night,
flying without a net.
“The director just handed me a stack of
CDs, said, ‘I’ll be back in my office,’ and
left,” Shepard recalls with a laugh. “I
messed up a thing or two that night.”
He also made a mark. Soon, he was
filling in for the regular disk jockeys,
developing his now trademark voice.
In 1999, Shepard took his sound to
Radio One’s 92Q as host of the late
night slow jam The Love Zone and began
carving out a niche in the Baltimore
radio world. He eventually returned to
WEAA.

But that Hollywood dream is still very
much alive. Shepard has acted in a few
independent films that have received
distribution — “Hip Hop Task force,”
“Lorenzo” and “Monica” — and is one
of the principal actors in the film
“Bachelorette’s Degree,” which is
due out late this year. He also
hosted The Baltimore Buzz, which
was a weekly TV newsmagazine
featuring local news and entertainment, and was a featured
contributor to the syndicated Michael Eric Dyson
Show.
Outside of radio,
Shepard is an entrepreneur, as well.
He is the owner
of TVM Productions & Consulting LLC, an
audio/visual
production
company. His
clients have
included the
U.S. Department
of Defense, the U.S.
Department of the Army
and the Federal Aviation
Administration.
“I am the kind of person who if I have
down time, it drives me crazy,” he says.
“I am still working to move my brand
around the country.”

www.weaa.org

As WEAAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interim
general manager and
program director,
Shepard is responsible
for just about every
song played on the
Morgan airwaves.

MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

21

International Exchange Students
Flourish at MSU

(left to right)
Eduardo Morais, Yeqing Liu
and Lucas Possani,
international exchange
students at MSU

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VOLUME I 2013

JIER LI AND YEQING LIU, FROM
CHINA, AND LUCAS POSSANI AND
EDUARDO MORAIS, FROM BRAZIL,
are all undergraduates at Morgan and
are among the first fruits of the University’s expansion of its student exchange
programs. When we talked with them in
February, Li was in her second
semester at MSU, and Possani and
Morais were in their first. All were
adjusting quickly to their new home on
Morgan’s campus and were getting
used to such challenges as speaking
English as a second language,
exploring Baltimore using public transportation and doing more homework
than they ever have.
Morais, 23, is a chemistry major from
Porto Alegre, in Southern Brazil. Like a
true scientist, he was skeptical of the
scary things he was hearing about the
U.S. at home.
“…One of the things that people were
telling me: ‘There’s a lot of homework
there.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t believe it,’
” he says. “Then I came here, and
there’s a lot of homework,” he adds,
laughing. “…But the people here are
very cool, especially the people here at
Morgan. They’ve treated me very well. I
like the city.”
Morais plans to be a university professor. He and Possani, 22, who is a
computer science major from
Guarulhos, Brazil, came to Morgan
through a very competitive Brazilian
program called “The Science Mobility
Program.” The two were selected from
about 9,000 applicants nationwide.
But T. Joan Robinson, Ph.D., Morgan’s
vice president for International Affairs,
explains that the Brazilian students’
path to the U.S. actually began in 2010,
when President Barack Obama signed
an educational agreement with President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil. That
meeting of the minds led to a visit to
Brazil by administrators of five Historically Black Colleges and Universities,
including Morgan, and the formation of
a 34-member HBCU/Brazil Alliance, of
which Dr. Robinson is chair. In April
2012, the Alliance signed an agreement
with Brazil’s Federal Agency for Support
and Evaluation of Graduate Education
(CAPES), to increase cooperations, collaborations and student exchanges
between the two countries.

This past summer, 25 more students
from Brazil took English as a second
language courses at MSU, Dr. Robinson
reports. Some of them stayed on as science or technology majors in the fall.
“One of Morgan’s Strategic Goals is to
enhance the University’s student and
faculty exchanges globally,” she says.
“As a doctoral research university, we
want to increase our collaborations
globally, by bringing students and faculty here, and also sending students
and faculty abroad.”
The University has increased its
number of potential partners for student exchanges, through agreements
with institutions in Brazil, China, Finland, Tanzania, France, India, Botswana,
South Africa and other countries, she
says.

to get a master’s degree somewhere in
the U.S., work in the media and return
to China.
“…Studying here at Morgan is the
biggest decision I’ve ever made. But I
think I did it right,” says Li. “This is a
good chance for me to explore the
world. I like to go to different places
(and have) different experiences.”
Dr. Robinson knows Li’s sentiment well.
Born in Trinidad and Tobago, she was
once an international student in the
U.S. herself, more than 40 years ago.
“I have a passion for international student exchanges,” Dr. Robinson says. “It

Doing It Right
The program that brought Jier Li and
Yeqing Liu to Morgan began six years
ago with the signing of a memorandum
of understanding between MSU and
China’s Hubei University. After a visit to
Hubei in 2011 by Morgan President
David Wilson for the Chinese institution’s 85th anniversary, Hubei administrators came to Morgan. During their
visit, in April 2012, they signed an
agreement establishing a 2/2 Bachelor
of Science degree program: two years at
Hubei and two years at Morgan.
Li, a 20-year-old communications
major from the city of Wuhan, speaks
about the challenges of being closer to
her professors at Morgan.
“The first semester was sometimes difficult because you (have) a whole different education system,” she says.
“Let’s say, in China, our class is up to
60 students. But here, it’s like 20. One
of my classes we just have five. But we
have more chances to communicate
with our professor.
“And,” she adds, smiling, “we have a lot
more homework.”
Li’s parents are both university professors. Her father teaches marketing, and
her mother is a linguistics professor
who has worked abroad in Austria. Li
says her mother has given her free rein
to choose her career path, and supported her decision to come to Morgan.
After finishing the 2/2 program, Li plans

is important for us to know each other’s
cultures and engage in collaborative
dialogue, getting to know each other
better. That’s based on the experience
that I’ve had from travelling broadly,”
she explains. “I feel our students need
to have that exposure of going abroad.”
Last year, Dr. Robinson established
Morgan’s Center for Global Studies and
International Education, which serves
the University’s more than 350 international students. The Center is staffed by
Ian Jacobs, Ph.D., executive director;
Johnson Niba, assistant director; and
Richard C. Kitson-Walters, director of
international student services.
Students interested in going to China
to participate in the Morgan/Hubei
dual-degree program should contact
the Center’s staff, says Antoinette
Coleman, Ph.D., MSU’s assistant vice
president for Academic Affairs. For
Morgan students interested in
participating in exchange programs
with Brazilian universities,
information will be forthcoming
through the Center once the program
is fully implemented.
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23

New Leaders at MSU

Experience,

By Jannette J. Witmyer

T. Joan Robinson, Ph.D.

Maurice Taylor, Ph.D., J.D.

Vice President, International Affairs

Vice President, Academic Outreach and
Engagement

T. Joan Robinson, Ph.D. is an accomplished scientist, educator and educational administrator with 30 years of professional experience, 20 of them in service to Morgan State
University. A native of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Robinson
earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, a master’s degree in
microbiology and a Ph.D. in cell biology/endocrinology. She
then did three years of postdoctoral research at the Mayo
Clinic and the National Institutes of Health, before
launching her career in academia. Dr. Robinson has served
as an assistant professor at North Carolina A&T State University and as associate professor at Xavier University of
Louisiana.

Dr. Maurice Taylor’s impressive career at Morgan
began some 22 years ago, in 1991, when he was
hired as the assistant dean of the University’s
College of Arts and Sciences. Since then, he has
served as assistant vice president for Academic
Affairs, special assistant to the president, dean
of the School of Graduate Studies, vice president
for University Operations, and, since July 2012,
as vice president for Academic Outreach and
Engagement.

Since coming to Morgan, Dr. Robinson has served as professor and chair of the Department of Biology; as dean of
the School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences
and as University provost and vice president for Academic
Affairs, before taking her current position. As vice president
for International Affairs, she is responsible for bringing
international students to the campus community, facilitating University-wide efforts to internationalize the curriculum, developing collaborations with institutions abroad,
and other duties that enable Morgan to meet its strategic
goals related to international education. Dr. Robinson is
also chair of the HBCU-Brazil Alliance, a White House initiative to increase educational cooperation and student
exchanges between the two countries.
“Engagement with international learners and scholars is an
essential element of the growth of any institution,” she says.
“Morgan aspires to be a leader in cultivating intellectual and
creative capital from the brightest minds worldwide."

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In his current capacity, Dr. Taylor, one of the key
architects of the University’s Strategic Plan, will
be responsible for the administration of a variety
of programs, among them, a seniors academy;
summer institutes; and credit, noncredit, online,
on-campus and off-campus courses.
“The idea,” he says, “is to provide lifelong
learning experiences. We will use the resources
that we have at Morgan, in terms of faculty and
student energy, to work with the communities,
businesses and neighborhood organizations to
accomplish a better quality of life for the residents…thereby improving the ability of Morgan
students and faculty to be comfortable in that
environment, as well.”

Innovation and Global Vision Enhance Morgan’s Growth

Kevin M. Banks, Ed.D.

Victor R. McCrary, Ph.D.

Vice President, Student Affairs

Vice President, Research and Economic
Development

Dr. Kevin Banks is passionate about Historically
Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and about
his job at Morgan, which he has held since August
2012.

Dr. Victor McCrary joined Morgan’s administrative
team in December 2012. Having spent most of his
30-year science and technology career in private
industry, government and at a private university,
he is excited to share his knowledge and experience with Morgan. It’s important to him that graduates of HBCUs have the same opportunity to “sit
at the table” as others. So, through the years, he
has created research partnerships between other
HBCUs and organizations such the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory and the
U.S. Navy to advance that goal.

“I believe that I’m here to support the students,” he
says. “I know the difference that it can make in the
life of a young person. My philosophy is about
working with the students and being an advocate for
the students.”
The “difference” that this accomplished, 18-year veteran of leadership in academia speaks of relates to
his experiences as an undergrad student at an
HBCU, Winston-Salem State University, where he
found a nurturing environment and had the good
fortune of being mentored by one of Morgan’s
favorite sons, Hall of Fame basketball coach
Clarence “Big House” Gaines.
As a result of his work experience and nontraditional educational path, Dr. Banks understands that
a lot of learning happens outside of the classroom,
and he sees himself as an expert in that area. Developing a stronger extracurricular environment for
weekends, providing greater exposure to alumni,
partnering with local community associations and
developing a conflict mediation program on campus
to work with area high school and middle school
students are just a few of his many ideas for
Morgan. He is committed to success, so much so
that his son, now a freshman at Monmouth University, will become a Morgan student this fall.

Dr. McCrary, who was awarded the U.S. Commerce
Department’s Gold Medal for developing standards for electronic books, is a firm believer in
thinking outside of the box and taking ideas to
the next level. His goal is to unlock Morgan’s
entrepreneurial potential and establish the University, via its research prowess, as a catalyst for
economic vitality across the state. He believes
that can be accomplished by building a collaborative environment that encourages the various
schools to link their efforts creatively.
“At Morgan, the key to our innovation and vitality
is (first to unlock) our potential to take risks, to be
fearless,” he says. “…A good idea is a good idea.
Let’s go make it happen. We are a premier urban
university.”

MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

25

Morgan’s PEARL

Improving Coastal
Ecosystems

By Ferdinand Mehlinger

MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY opened a new chapter in its
environmental stewardship, education, research and development program this summer, with the renaming and rededication of its estuarine research facility in St. Leonard, Md.
Joined by several hundred people at the satellite campus,
Morgan President David Wilson christened the open house
event, announcing the new name of the former MSU Estuarine Research Center: the Morgan Patuxent Environmental
and Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL). Guests included
federal, state and local government officials, administrators
of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University and
representatives of the community neighboring the facility,
among many others.

we all need to be accountable for and that we all have to be
socially responsible for, developed later.”

Speaking on the significance of the continuing educational
mission of Morgan’s PEARL, particularly for the next generation of urban youth, MSU’s newly appointed vice president of
research and economic development, Victor R. McCrary,
Ph.D., reflected on his early impressions of the Chesapeake
as a young city dweller.

Commenting further on the renaming of the research facility,
MSU President David Wilson said, “This new name is a
reflection on this facility’s renewed commitment to its
research mission, (which) is going to result in an environmentally improved Chesapeake Bay, a healthier seafood population and Maryland watermen who will benefit from a
stronger industry.”

“I grew up in Washington, D.C., and when I saw the Potomac
was when we drove by it,” said Dr. McCrary. “The Chesapeake
Bay was something I knew about, as far as where we got
crabs. But for kids growing up like I did in an urban environment, understanding that there is an entire ecosystem that

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PEARL gives Morgan the distinction of being the only urban
Historically Black College or University that has the Chesapeake Bay as part of its campus environment. Here, MSU
students are able to conduct innovative research of the connections between complex ecological systems, while providing society with the knowledge to meet environmental
challenges such as the effects of global warming in coming
years.
“We believe that the PEARL is a vital research facility in the
mitigation of global climate change,” said Dr. McCrary.

Morgan acquired the 28,000-square-foot St. Leonard, Md.,
facility in 2005, when it was transferred to MSU in a partnership agreement with Drexel University’s Academy of Natural
Sciences.

Program
Graduate
Chunlei Fan, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology at Morgan PEARL (right), with his former student Elaine Bautista, who graduated
from Morgan in 2010 with a bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in biology. Bautista now works for the
National Institutes of Health.

MORGAN MAGAZINE
VOLUME I 2013

27

By Lynette Locke

A Gift of ‘Memories’
An exhibition at Morgan’s James E. Lewis Museum of
Art this past winter honored Morgan alumnus and
benefactor James H. Gilliam Jr., ’67. The event, which
ran from Feb. 10–28, was titled, “Making Memories: The
Scrapbooks of Financier James H. Gilliam Jr., Esq.,
Morgan Alumnus, Baltimore Native.”

THE EXHIBITION TOLD THE STORY
of the prominent lawyer, financier and
humanitarian through his scrapbooks,
which dated from his high school days
until his death in 2003. Gilliam, an English major at Morgan, had a 20-year
career with Beneficial Finance Corporation, where he served as executive vice
president and general counsel until
1998. After leaving Beneficial, he and his
wife, Linda G.J. Gilliam, D.M.D., now a
Morgan regent, formed the Gilliam
Foundation, a philanthropic organization established as a means for their
family to channel resources back into
the community.
The foundation created a $1.5-million
fine arts endowment at Morgan in 2000,
in honor of James Gilliam’s mother and
his father, who is also a Morgan graduate, Class of 1948. The James H. Gilliam
Sr. and Louise Hayley Gilliam Concert
Hall, the largest auditorium of the University’s Carl J. Murphy Fine Arts Center,
bears their names.
The younger James H. Gilliam was born
in 1945 and kept dozens of scrapbooks
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and notebooks about his life. “Making
Memories” included highlights such as
his correspondence and photographs
with U.S. Presidents Clinton, Carter and
Ford, and with Joe Biden, who was then
a U.S. senator. The Gilliam family
donated the scrapbooks to Morgan.
Annette Palmer, Ph.D., chair of Morgan’s
Department of History and Geography,
and project director for the Gilliam
Papers, says the University had no idea
the family’s initial gift to Morgan three
years ago would end with the retrospective on Gilliam’s accomplishments.
“All I knew was that he had given (a large
gift) to Morgan to honor his parents
(and) that his peers in the English
Department thought that as a student,
he just about walked on water,” she says.
The University needed someone to
process the collection, and the Gilliam
Foundation was willing to pay for the
archiving. So a light bulb went off for Dr.
Palmer. Morgan’s History and Geography
Department had been talking for several
years about introducing courses in public
history. She thought the collection of

scrapbooks could become a hands-on
laboratory where students could get
experience in historical preservation.
Dr. Palmer knew that her colleague in the
department, professor Debra Newman
Ham, Ph.D., had archival experience. Dr.
Ham had worked at the Library of Congress and the National Archives, and she
jumped at the chance to start the
project.
Their graduate and undergraduate students have gained valuable experience
processing the collection, which includes
more than 50 boxes of textual materials
and about the same number of boxes of
3-D objects.
“In addition to traditional history majors,
we have students who are working on
museum studies degrees. One of these
students, Iris Barnes, was the curator for
this exhibit,” says Dr. Ham. “Anyone who
(visited) this exhibit (came) away with a
greater understanding of this man in history and the important roles that
African-American men and women have
played in shaping it.”

Students Celebrate at the
137th Commencement
A CROWD of more than 10,000 family
members, friends and well-wishers
filled W.A.C. Hughes Memorial Stadium this past May 18, as Morgan conferred degrees to more than 1,100
graduates at its 137th annual Commencement exercises. The University
awarded baccalaureate degrees to
more than 800 undergraduate students and more than 300 master’s and
doctoral degree candidates, under a
bright sky at the Saturday ceremony.
“This is the moment of validation of
the investment made by our students
and their families,” said Morgan President David Wilson. “We are honored
and excited to send these graduates
out into the world to grow a future of
innovation and prosperity.”
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan addressed the graduates as
this year’s Commencement speaker,
tracing his own career path — from
college in the U.S., to professional
basketball player in Australia, to executive at a Chicago not-for-profit that
provided college education opportunities for students at a struggling
inner-city school. And he told how the
major lessons he has learned coincide
with the main elements of a Morgan
education.
“I have great faith that when you leave
Morgan State, you will also remember

those essential ingredients of an MSU
education: the call to lead a life of
consequence, to pursue your passion
and to be a world citizen,” he said.
Duncan also expressed support for
Historically Black Colleges and Univer-

U.S. Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan, 2013
Commencement speaker
sities, saying “HBCUs must not merely
survive. They must thrive. As we move
ahead, we can only lead the world
again in college graduation rates, as
the president has challenged us to do,
with the leadership and success of
HBCUs.”
Since the Obama administration took
office, federal funding for HBCUs has
increased by 43 percent, from $3.6 billion to $5.2 billion, and Pell Grant
funding for HBCU students has
jumped 77 percent, from $523 million
to $929 million.

Honorary degrees were awarded to
two distinguished champions of civil
rights and education. Prominent educator Dr. Charles Vert Willie, of the
Harvard School of Education, and the
Honorable Fred David Gray, former
attorney for Rosa Parks and the Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., both
received the honorary Doctor of
Humane Letters degree.
Notable graduates of the MSU Class of
2013 include Fulbright Scholar Christian Kameni, a history major and
Prince George’s County, Md., native,
who went to Paris this past summer to
teach English in the French Ministry of
Education. Also graduating were
mother and daughter Beulah and Tiye
Lewis of Baltimore, Md., who received
undergraduate degrees in family and
consumer sciences and in physical
education, respectively, from the
School of Education and Urban
Studies. A perfect 4.0 grade-point
average earned graduate Craig Cornish
of Southern Maryland, a member of
Morgan’s National Champion Honda
Campus All-Star Challenge team, a full
scholarship to Princeton University to
study history.
Also of note was the award of Morgan’s
first doctorate in psychometrics to
Mercy W. Nedge Mugo, from the
School of Graduate Studies.